Echoes of the Red Earth

This is my novice manuscript. I chose ‘Echoes of the Red Earth’ for the title because it is a collection of stories related to each other. If humans were to start anew, how would they survive? What would be their challenges?

As a novice writer, I thought it was an excellent manuscript. Receiving a few excellent raves from readers, I was excited to make it a masterpiece. But then I received a negative review. Improper sentence structure, too many repeating phrases and words, and other issues with it. Reality sets in, some like it, others do not. I went through the whole manuscript again, sent it to an editor, and republished it through Dream Write Publishing. I changed the title to ‘The Thundering: and other short stories by Cornelius van Dijk.’

Written in the first person, present tense, created its own challenges in writing it. We always think in the past, but live in the present, and hope for the future. Writing in the past tense is easy, but writing in the present tense needs a whole new discipline in writing style.